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“Your turn, Ulysses!”
“Oh…of course!”
Doing their best to keep their eyes open, per Diana’s commands, Ulysses moved one of the middle blocks of the tower’s most stable sections right to the top, completing yet another strata of the inevitably-crumbling block tower. A tower that inevitably ends up in an alternating pattern: two blocks, one block, two blocks, one block, and so on and so forth.
Their captor tried his damndest to repackage the game with his face on the cover and a matching paint job, but just about everybody knew that it was just a poor man’s imitation of Jenga.
Once they finished their turn, Cassidy smiled cockily as she pulled out one of the side pieces from the strata directly above the one Ulysses claimed, and confidently set the block on top with that familiar wooden clack.
However, Cassidy has been wearing that cocky smirk, ever since Ulysses attempted to break the ice with an infodump on the history of Russia. The pro-gamer was practically vibrating in her seat, once the infodump got to the subject of communism, a philosophy that she quite blatantly upholds. Every time the historian mentioned the wide gaps between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that are inherent in the society that led to this philosphy, Cassidy turned her head to the entrepreneur next to her, making the disdain in her wide smirk well-known.
“Y’know, Ully. With your historical knowledge and my drive to eat the rich, we could start a real proletariat uprising! Luckily, we’ve got one member of the bourgeoisie trapped right here with us!”
After that statement, the side-eye from Cassidy was intense enough to melt a hole in Wenona’s skull.
As much as Wenona knew exactly why, she glared back at the redhead, and spoke in her standard icy tone.
“Why are you looking at me?”
“Because it’s your turn, duh!”
However, the entrepreneur knew better than to humor the ignorance of the pro-gamer and get into an argument regarding a societal model that was only implemented by a couple of countries, and failed in even those few. So she simply scoffed, and turned her head, apathetic to the fact that her shiny black hair whipped Cassidy in the face.
Looking over at the pink-haired girl next to them, Ulysses could see a hint of nervousness behind Diana’s smile. They couldn’t help but pity the cosmetologist, knowing that she organized this little get-together as a bonding exercise. Ulysses took note of the fact that their group of sixteen was divided into fourths, in order to play a Tozu-branded board game of their choice. It was a shame that this randomly-picked group only seemed to reinforce the preexisting vitriol that these two polar opposites had.
Ulysses, in an effort to avert their eyes from the conflict in front of them, flipped through the pages of their journal, and tried to imagine how the other groups they jotted down could potentially fare.
The duo of Mark and Jett were partnered up with Damon and Eva. With this spread, it should become blatantly obvious who the outlier was. Ulysses didn’t even need to contemplate on who would send the tower crumbling with one reckless tug.
Grace, Ingrid, Eloise, and Kai have a similar problem. A certain bunny-eared problem. But Ulysses could easily imagine that, with Grace’s competitive nature, she would actually be able to exercise some self-control, and end up winning.
The final group, consisting of Wolfgang, Toshiko, Jean, and Desmond, stands out in not having an obvious outlier in impulsiveness. As a group of some of the most level-headed individuals in the killing game’s roster, any one of the four would have an about-equal chance of winning the game.
Ulysses barely had enough time to contemplate the possible winner of the final group, before Wenona delicately placed a block on top of the tower.
“That model of business belongs in the fifties, fool.”
At this point, Cassidy’s lid of resentment boiled over, and like a hungry predator, the gamer pounced on top of the entrepreneur, catching the normally-collected girl off guard. The sudden movement jerked the table, causing the block tower to collapse, hereby making Wenona the loser.
“Who you callin’ ‘fool’, fool?!”
Upon looking up and seeing Cassidy straddling her hips with a mischievous expression and flexing her fingers, Wenona refused to show any signs of submitting to the childish whims of this fool. Especially towards the fool who sabotaged her chances of success at this game. So she steeled her expression, in order to come out of this whole ordeal with some sense of dignity.
“You’re the fool.”
But rather than getting angry, Cassidy’s grin only became wider, as playful yet malicious giggles spilled uncontrollably out of her mouth. Much to Wenona’s surprise, Cassidy’s wiggling fingers made their way under her fur jacket and wiggled in between the grooves of her ribs, causing an unwelcome feeling to begin moving its way up her body.
And her heart stop, once she realized what her diametric opposite was planning on doing.
“Coochie-coochie-coochie-coochie-coo! Ya’ ticklish?”
Not wanting to give the gamer girl the satisfaction of knowing about her bodily sensitivity, Wenona attempted to keep her mouth shut and frowning, to prevent any sounds from coming out. But Cassidy’s fingers were like intrusive spiders, crawling their way up and down her sides and digging into her ribs, making it progressively harder to cover up one or the other. And because she was straddling her sides, the entrepreneur couldn’t curl in on herself to dodge the annoying digits. Even if Wenona tries to push Cassidy’s hands away, this only incentivizes the pro gamer to go for the armpits, which turned out to be a particularly bad spot for the entrepreneur, as she doubles down on preventing the stream of laughter from rushing out.
However, the smile unwittingly stretching across her face proves that the dam is starting to crack.
Meanwhile, Diana and Ulysses could only gaze upon the rather humorous scene happening before them.
“Wow, they’re getting along already!”
“...You think so?”
Any attempts by Wenona to steel her body against the ticklish sensations were rendered void by Cassidy changing her attack plan.
“What about this spot?”
By scribbling her fingers over the entrepreneur’s stomach area.
And at this point, the dam burst, as uncontrollable laughter spilled out of Wenona’s mouth and echoed all across the room. As she can barely move her arms and body from the position Cassidy put her in, she could only wiggle in place and shake her head back and forth, but everybody in the room could see the massive smile on her face.
Especially Ulysses, who was rendered speechless and flustered.
In all of the words in the English language, they could only find one word to aptly describe Wenona’s features in this situation.
Cute.
Wenona’s braids getting loosened by her constant tossing and turning? Cute. Wenona’s flushed cheeks getting stained with tears of laughter? Cute. The way her eyes squeezed shut? Cute. The way her wide smile is on full display? Very cute.
But the cutest part of all of this?
That laugh.
Remarkably high-pitched considering her normal voice and interspersed with gibberish syllables probably meant to be protests, the massive gap between her normal demeanor and the state she is currently in was too much of a dissonance for Ulysses’ mind.
Heat rose in their cheeks and radiated out to their entire face, and their jaw remained slack, even as their prized notebook slipped from their hands and fell onto the floor.
Diana waved her hand and tried to catch Ulysses’ attention, but their eyes and ears were focused entirely on that laugh. That smile. Those loosened braids.
But the historian knew that all of the words in the English language couldn’t aptly describe the mirthful mystery that is Wenona’s laugh.
So, as Cassidy became sufficiently entertained and left, and those adorable sounds started to die down, Ulysses internally lamented that they would probably never have the luxury of hearing those sounds again, and subsequently committing them to memory.
“Oh, Ulysses~!”
Diana’s chirpy voice snapped Ulysses to attention. They turned their head, to see Diana with a mischievous smirk, holding the arms of an exhausted Wenona up.
“It seems like Wenona lost the game! How about we hold a punishment game and hear more of that adorable laugh?”
Although Wenona was worn out by Cassidy’s tickles, she still tried to wrestle her arms away from Diana’s mischievous hands. But the entrepreneur’s attempts were stopped in their tracks by Ulysses sitting down on her legs. Heat rushed back to her face, upon seeing the historian in such close proximity with her. One look at the historian’s equally-flustered face indicated to Wenona that they didn’t want to do this, but curiosity and a desire to burn the sound of her laughter into their brain won out. With their hands shaking, Ulysses brandished a familiar tool of theirs that would rain ticklish hell should it come into contact with her:
Their owl feather quill.
“Don’t. You. Da-”
The second the owl feather stroked the inside of her navel, any protests died in her throat to make room for more laughter.
Laughter that Ulysses doesn’t need notation to remember.